As the Medium Lobster drifted through the heavenly aether this afternoon, Edward of Obsidian Wings managed to alert us to the Virginia state legislature's recent decision to ban any "partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage." Indeed, with one bold stroke, Virginia has done away with the shadowy threats of gay marriage, civil unions, joint-filing status and hospital visitation rights for homosexuals. But is this truly enough?

The Medium Lobster has already addressed the cosmic threat to celestial harmony that is gay marriage before. But the even more pernicious threat of gay civil contracts also tears at the fabric of civilization.

If gays are allowed to continue to form civil contracts with one another that guarantee partnership rights, it would erode the sanctity of civil contracts forever. After all, a contract giving one's domestic partner the medical power of attorney is not some crass secular bond to be toyed with and redefined at will. It is a divine institution, set forth by God himself, and to allow a same sex couple to make the same inheritance provisions as a married couple would violate the sacred laws of contractual obligation.

So the Medium Lobster salutes Virgina's attempt to put a stop to creeping secularity in our private arrangements. Only one qualm remains: will this law alone be enough, or will activist courts allow the homosexual agenda to taint the very fabric of civil contracts? The Medium Lobster fears that America may need to amend its constitution to prevent any further damage from the encroaching forces of private gayness.

If you meet the dirty bomb in a social setting always greet it with a firm but polite handshake and a warm smile. Say "how do you do." Suitable topics of conversation may include theater, the weather, compliments (but not lewd compliments) for the appearance of the dirty bomb or the dirty bomb's wife, politics if appropriate an sensible. If you have committed a faux pas with the dirty bomb say "oh I am most certainly sorry dirty bomb I did not mean to offend" and offer to refresh the dirty bomb's drink. It is best to avoid religion an baseball with the dirty bomb.

If the dirty bomb begins to growl or if its ears are pressed flat against its head this may be a sign of aggression. Back away slowly from the dirty bomb. Do not make quick moves which could make it nervous. Do not show fear. When you are at a safe enough distance contact dirty bomb authorities who will be able to control and detain it.

If you are approached by a dirty bomb in a car do not get in even if it knows your name or offers you presents. Do not let the dirty bomb touch you! Stay with adults or Homeland Security officials at all times until the dirty bomb has left the scene. Tell a police officer immediately about what has happened.

Giblets is seeing a whole bunch of people yelling for Rumsfeld to resign lately. And for what? A widespread pattern of atrocities? Some horribly botched war planning? Disastrous interference with the CIA and State Department? Okay yes, that is exactly why they want him to resign. And y'know sure, there are probably a lot of better qualified people to run the Pentagon than Donald Rumsfeld, a lot of people who could run the war without mucking it up as much as he has, and firing him would probably make those spoiled Iraqis a little happier. But at what price?

If Rumsfeld resigns the terrorists will win, because we will have done exactly what they wanted us to do. All of their suicide bombings and rocket grenade killings and getting tortured by guards have been leading up to the moment when they can trick American politicians to pressure Donald Rumsfeld into quitting. And if he quits it will be appeasement - appeasement to terror! It will be Madrid and Neville Chamberlain and "The Spaghetti Incident" all over again!

To everybody who wants a weak America, who wants a pansy-ass runnin-scared fraidy-cat America, Giblets has this to say: God bless Donald Rumsfeld because he is taking the fight to the terrorists, in some vague, ill-conceived sense that doesn't seem to be working out well but hey, Giblets is not a "details" person he is a "big picture" person. And even if you do get rid of this one good man, I am confident that there are a lotmorewherehecame from.

Mothers Day is always confusin for us here at Fafblog. The Medium Lobster is of course a higher being who transcends origin and therefore has no mother unless you count Izzy. "But the Medium Lobster transcends Izzy," says Giblets. "Very true," says me.

"Did we have proper mothers Giblets?" I says. "Or were we put together by big cold soulless machines?""I think I remember my mother putting me together using a big cold soulless machine," says Giblets."I remember bein told, 'Be good, children, and we'll mail you in a box to America.'" I says."And we were all, 'Yaaaaaaay!'" says Giblets."Those were good days, back in the box," I says. "Ah nostalgia.""But what of our mothers?" says Giblets.

Yes what of our mothers? What of the mothers of Fafblog? They were good mothers. They were honest mothers. They were caring mothers. They were strange, strange mothers. We salute you, mothers. Take care.

John Quiggin over at Crooked Timber and Paul Krugman over at his little rag have spooky pieces about oil right now. Key points of interest include: will oil prices stay high forever? Are we running out of oil? Where can Giblets get his hands on some oil if he really has a major oil jonze goin'? Does oil come from dinosaurs? No really, doesn't it come from dinosaurs? Oh. Now Giblets feels bad about sticking all his dinosaur friends in tar pits all those years ago.

Krugman talks a lot about the oil squeeze and about China eating up more of the world supply of a limited resource, but what of Giblets, Krugman? Where does Giblets go for sweet, sweet crude? There is the pool, yes, but that is just for casual swimming and bathing. Giblets has a couple dozen kegs on tap but those are for special occasions, and on a regular basis I have thirty or so internal combustion engines running in my home (Giblets finds the incessant roar of their engines and belching of their smog comforting) and they are getting hungry, Krugman. So hungry!

Quiggin says "low-cost substitutes" will "become attractive." Krugman says we will all have to "adapt." Giblets does not adapt to the world! The world adapts to Giblets! What am I going to do, get "fuel cells"? Hydrogen economies are for pussies! Giblets demands a monopoly on an exhaustible resource! Giblets demands a monopoly on an exhaustible resource NOOOOW!

Truly, the shocking revelations of the horrors of Abu Ghraib have posed a dire threat to America's fight for stability in Iraq and its greater war against terror. If left unchecked, this growing cancer threatens to consume every good thing America has worked for in the region - and the United States must quickly act against such an eventuality by suppressing any remnants of conscience lingering in our military.

As Tim Graham and Joe Lieberman have pointed out, the abuses committed by Americans in Abu Ghraib are mild compared to those committed by Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden. When one compares American atrocities to Iraqi or terrorist atrocities one quickly recognizes that American atrocities hold the moral high ground. Indeed, when stripped of all conscience, the callous and depraved American torturer is still morally far superior to the conscience-stripped, callous and depraved Al Qaeda terrorist. Hence one concludes that even sans moral compass, America is still a beacon of light within the Mideast.

Were the atrocities committed in Abu Ghraib horrifying? Indeed. But more horrifying still would be a military unable or unequipped to deal with the Forces of Terror. Americans have seen the torture and the raping, certainly, but they haven't seen the intelligence gleaned from said torture and raping - and the lives saved, pipelines constructed, and schools built because of that intelligence. Can the West really afford to have an Iraqi insurgent's pride in his unexposed genitalia - his unexposed, terrorist genitalia - come between US troops and a shipment of arms bound for a Baathist cell? Can American children sleep safely if a prisoner's unelectrocuted testicles - unelectrocuted Islamist testicles - prevent him from confessing the location of a suicide bomber, or his participation in late night Black Sabbaths to summon Beelzebub amongst a coven of witches?

America will still hold the moral high ground if it continues a policy of torture in Iraq. In fact, it would only surrender such a high ground if it ended that policy - much less take the self-destructive steps that such left-wing war opponents as Tacitus and The Economist have proposed. War, after all, is hell, and there is no room for such extravagences as conscience or humanity or moral high ground in hell.

So the FDA has decided that the mornin after pill is not gonna be sold over the counter. This is yknow a huge step backwards for women's health and for contraception and the prevention of abortions. But it is a huge step forward for what we at Fafblog like to call the "rights of the unconceived," which is just a few short steps from what we are really lookin forward to which is the rights of the inanimate.

I have personally spent hours an hours talkin to cans, waffle irons, boxes, printer cartridges and forks and they all dream of one thing: no longer bein treated as second-class citizens in the United States. Why is it we can casually throw out a burger wrapper as if its non-life life didnt matter? Why are staplers used against their will?

So we're all excited about the rights of nonviable sperm and eggs bein protected under US law. But where is the love for America's plastic? When does lint get the right to vote?

Today is Cinco de Mayo! or as it is known in Mexico the Fifth of May. It is a holiday comparable in importance to the American Fourth of July. It celebrates the day when Mexico signed their declaration of independence and threw off the yoke of British colonialism, huzzah! It is also known as "Mexican Independence Day" or "The Day of the Dead" because the head of the Mexican army enlisted the spirits of the dead to help them fight the British troops. This became the basis for Lord of the Rings.

Cinco de Mayo is celebrated with the ceremonial burning of a piñata in the shape of King George, which is referred to as "the Guy." King George is called "the Guy" because it is sort of an informal version of saying "the Man," like "the Guy has me down" or "I gotta work for the Guy." He is also sometimes called "Guy Fawkes" as in "The Guy Fawkes you" or "I am getting Fawked by the Guy." It is a more polite substitution for "fuck." In Mexico they are always terribly polite.

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo today with a burning Guy or a thing for the dead or a gamelan or whatnot! It is Cinco de Mayo. Have fun.

As long as old Vietnam veterans who sorta served near or around John Kerry are comin' out and saying how much he sucks, Giblets might as well get in on the action. This action is now Giblets's. It belongs to Giblets! Bow before Giblets!

Giblets served on the very same boat that John Kerry did in Vietnam. And by "served," I mean that Giblets visited it, or a boat very much like it, at a museum. Giblets found the boat - and Mr Kerry - boring and demeaning to America. Giblets has also served admirably and been wounded in Vietnam, or at least has watched a whole lot of Vietnam movies. I yelp in pain every time I watch "Platoon."

Giblets is not alone either. I have a number of friends who are ragged veterans of such military games as "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell" and "River Raid" and they all think John Kerry was a lousy soldier - and a waffler on key legislative issues too. We are available for press conferences and fundraiser luncheons.

Last night I went to a gamelan concert. Gamelan is Javanese for "large unwieldy gong assembly with ornamental dragons." It is so cool! I recommend that everybody go down to their local music store and get themselves a gamelan and learn to play. "But Fafnir I am learnin to play the guitar like the rest of the people in my college band" you say because you are lame. Stop being lame! Any ol shmuck can play the guitar. This is a gamelan! It takes balls to play gamelan.

When a gamelan piece starts up it sounds like a huge guy made of bells an flutes and stringed things walkin over a mountain an you just think "Man that guy looks like a cool guy, I'd like to figure out where he's goin" so you head off down the mountain on your emu (you are riding an emu) after him. Of course the program for this gamelan concert said different. It described the piece as

...the lyrics address the cricket with proverbial good advice: "Chirping cricket, hiding in your hole, come join your friends. Don't live your life under a rock!" Then he gets eaten by a big bug.

The time is Giblets o clock. It is time for the news. Trust Giblets as an objective presenter of the truth! Trust Giblets as an objective presenter of the truth NOOOOOW!

Presidential hopeful John Kerry, after many weeks of getting kicked around by frothing negative ads from George Bush, has responded forcefully with a $25 million ad buy that showcases his Vietnam war heroism. This is a good move because it shows the three voters who did not already know about Kerry's war record how effectively he will lead America. Y'know. In Vietnam.

The US military has investigated the deaths of 25 prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan and determined that two of them were murdered by Americans. Well I know everyone is gonna get their panties in a bunch over the two murdered prisoners, but what Giblets finds really remarkable is that 23 dead prisoners weren't murdered. If this "US military" is so unbiased why isn't it investigating all the murders we haven't committed? There are 25 million Iraqis still alive, people. Two out of 25 million is lookin' sweet.

Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon's go-to-guy in Iraq, may have given "sensitive information" to Iran that could "get people killed." I dunno, Giblets doesn't see this as a big deal. So he's embezzled a little from Jordan, skimmed off the top from the CIA and the State Department, wants to run Iraq while havin' a little fling with Iran. He's a playa, America. A free spirit, a Don Juan. You can't own him, baby. Ahmed needs his space. He still loves you, baby. But he needs to hustle his muscle too.

The most terrible and heartbreaking thing ever in the world has happened. One of my Glofish has died.

Blinky (we are pretty sure it was Blinky) was lookin weird an bent and hunchbacked for a while, and couldnt get up off the bottom of the real easy, and then yesterday he died. I was inconsolable for a long time until Chris promised me he would get me a mutant cyborg Glofish to replace him. Chris denies this but it is true. The cyborg fish's name will be Sir Horatio Weatherspoon.

The man at the fish store claimed that Blinky's intrinsic Glofishness may have caused him to die. "Those are those fish they inject coral DNA into," he says. "Yeah they glow," I says. "Well the genetic tampering makes them genetically inferior," says the fish store man who thinks he is some expert on glofish genetics now, "so it mighta had a genetic disease that killed it." "That is stupid, stupid fish store man!" I says. "Glofish are if anything genetically superior. They can glow! Ordinary non-glofish fish cannot glow. That is superiority right there." "Duuuuh I am sooo stupid, watch me say stupid things," says the fish store man.

Anyway.

The good news is the cause of Glofish freedom is now spreadin to England where the BBC and the Independent both have Glofish articles about the different things Glofish technology can lead to. I dunno they are interesting articles but they mostly focus on boring things like goats that can make supercheese and fast-growing salmon and environmental horror. Which is all interesting but misses the most important part which is that glofish really glow. What this could really lead to eventually is a host of other glowing animals like glomice, glocats, and even the fabled glomonkey. Dont you think people would be more eager to save whales if they were glowhales? Sure they would! Beautiful glowing whales.

Anyway I will be mourning Blinky (we think it was Blinky) for much of the rest of today but will be back in case anythin interesting happens or in case yknow mourning gets borin real fast which is always a concern you have with mourning.

So last night I was in this prematurely airconditioned supermarket and there were these aisles and aisles of bathing caps, an they had these sorta fourth of July plumes on em, and they were red, and blue, and yellow, and I wasnt tempted to buy them but they did remind me that I had been avoidin the beach.

"Chris" I says to Chris cause he's the one I talk to about the beach, "I wanna go to the beach.""Blah blah blah," says Chris who is eatin chicken. "Talk talk talk.""Chris you are so unhelpful," says me."Blah talk blah. Talk talk blah."

So I take the bus instead. The bus is big and old and smelly and ugly and the bus is all "Nggghhh the bus hates the beach, the bus doesnt go to the beach" and I go all "fooey to you the bus" and so I decide to walk to the beach as it is a pleasant sunny day and I see all kinds of interesting things on the way like several stop signs and Giblets and an old coke can.

When I get to the beach there is a huge beach monster there with enormous sharp teeth comin out of the sand. "Hey beach monster," says me. "RGGNRAAAFFRRRR" says the beach monster and it jumps for me and about fifty other Fafnirs all running away from it. "Run Fafnir!" say the other Fafnirs. "Aaaa!" says me and I start runnin.

I stop to rest in this prematurely airconditioned supermarket and there are these aisles and aisles of bathing caps, an they have these sorta fourth of July plumes on em, and they are red, and blue, and yellow, and Im not tempted to buy them but they do remind me that I have been avoidin the beach.

I do not have to tell loyal Fafblog readers that Supreme Court Justice David Souter is by far our favorite Supreme Court Justice here at Fafblog. He just kicks ass. Yes he is kind of a nerd and weirdly awkward in public but look at him he is so damn cool! He is totally the David Byrne of Supreme Court Justices. His opinion on United States v. Bestfoods just rocked.

Anyway I'll bet it was those big jerks Scalia and Rehnquist who beat him up. Everyone knows they are the bullies of the Court always beatin up Kennedy and stealin Ginsberg's lunch money. Rehnquist is always actin like he's the big hot shot boss with his captain stripes. Man they've gone too far, knockin on Souter.

Before we all get too excited about the "torture and rape and sexual humiliation" of Iraqi prisoners by the US military, the Medium Lobster would like to make a few general notes about what is of course a terrible discovery but is not to be blown out of proportion.

- The activities that occurred at Abu Ghuraib prison are not to be compared to those of Saddam Hussein's rape rooms and torture chambers. After all, those were rape rooms and torture chambers. These were merely rooms in which rape occurred, and chambers in which individuals were tortured.

- In war, atrocities will happen, as dew on the grass in the morning, or flower blossoms in the spring. The dew gathers. The buds open. The atrocities bloom. It is all according to the mysterious, ever-unfolding cycle of life - a cycle too vast and complex for mere mortals to comprehend.

- These were isolated incidents, and the behavior of these prison guards should in no way reflect upon the military superiors who endorsed and promoted such behavior. This is because atrocities are supervenient on subordinates, but not on command structures. Those with greater learning will understand.

As another enlightened being has noted, the true tragedy of this revelation is its impediment to the War For Civilization, as it has made the Arab world "drunk with rage," and in so doing perhaps eliminated any potential for peaceful resolution to the Middle East conflict. Here within the higher spheres, where the dangerously intoxicating qualities of rage are understood, we heartily support efforts such as the President's nuclear development program as the last chance of maintaining international sanity and order.

Yesterday George Bush disagreed with "people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern." A lot of high mucky-mucks like Josh Marshall and Atrios and George Bush are wondering just who these people are who think democracy will not work with brown-skinned people. Well, they is Giblets.

Giblets is a war supporter. I am very big on war. It is like a glass of fine white wine, it "cleanses the palate" of civilizations. Also it makes for fantastic television. More importantly it is enormously cathartic. After 9/11 Giblets was mad, real mad, and wanted to blow somethin up. Weapons of mass destruction? Who cares! Spreading democracy in the middle east? Never bought it! Giblets would be just as happy with a "democracy-minded strongman" like himself in charge. Yknow when those dictators think about democracy for an hour or so a day is when things really start to turn around.

But Giblets has never believed that brown people are capable of self-government. Take the one brown person I know, Bucephalus. "Bananas?" says Bucephalus. Bucephalus lives in a sadly limiting binary world. A world of Bananas and Ape Has Killed Ape. "No, Bucephalus," I say to Bucephalus, for Giblets has no Bananas and would spare none for him if he had any. "No bananas." "Oh," says Bucephalus sadly. "Ape has killed ape." Bucephalus cannot understand the myriad levels of complexity between these two states. Everything is black or white, on or off, Bananas or Ape Has Killed Ape. How would Bucephalus or a congress of Bucephaluses draft a bill or pass a budget? It is inconceivable.

It is not that Bucephalus is incapable of doing anything. He is an excellent juggler for example. Juggle, Bucephalus! Juggle for Giblets NOW! And he is rather obedient. Good Bucephalus! Very good Bucephalus. You have amused your lord and Giblets.

Anyway, it is about time we cut through the crap, recognized the brown-skinned people of Iraq cannot self-govern, and put them under the control of Giblets. Then we can move onto the problem of the white-skinned people who clearly cannot govern America. I mean come on. You people can't even fill court appointments.

Well we are pulling out of Fallujah it looks like. Now I know a lot of gloomy guses out there are gonna talk about appeasement and the downfall of the occupation and encouraging insurgents but yknow what, I think this pullin-out-and-leavin-crazy-Iraqi-militia-alone-under-a-Baathist-general plan might be on just the right track.

Remember that old episode of The Cosby Show where Theo wants to move out of his house and go live in the real world so Dr Huxtable goes and sets up his house as "The Real World Hotel" where Theo is charged for rent and food and cant afford to eat or sleep and has to say "Aw dad man was I stupid in this episode!" and his dad says "Thassalright son have a Jello pudding pop!" Ha ha! That was a great episode.

Well the moral of that episode is "be careful what you wish for because sometimes you're actually stupid" which is a valuable lesson we all should learn. What the US should do is give full sovereignty to all of Fallujah and put crazy Sunni militias in charge. At first they will be like "Awwwwright! Party in the mosque all Friday long!" but pretty soon they will learn that with Great Power Comes Great Responsibility and people will start comin up to them sayin hey crazy Sunni militias where's my electricity? and Hey crazy Sunni militias where's my job? and Hey crazy Sunni militias what happened to that universal health care plan you promised us? and crazy Sunni militias will learn the perils of incumbency.

Meanwhile the US will be back in limited-sovereignty Iraq goin "Oh what's that crazy Sunni militias you don't want to run Fallujah anymore? Oh well" and they will apologize profusely and US ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte will put a fatherly hand around their shoulder, give them a Jello pudding pop and a summary execution. And everybody will have a big laugh it'll be fun!

Anyway.

CORRECTION: In the previous version of this post Fafblog referred to crazy Sunni militias as "Moqtada al Sadr," who is not holed up in Fallujah. Also Fafblog referred to Iraq as "Candyland," President Bush as "convicted child molester President Bush," and Supreme Court Justice David Souter as "the argument from supervenience." Fafblog regrets the error.

It is not like other pies. In its pre-pie life it did not grow on bushes as harmless berries or round red apples. It stalked the earth as a wild beast eating plants and other beasts and now it is a pie ready and waiting to be eaten itself. It is a vicious pie from a vicious world. A world of eat or be eaten and pie or be pied.

Should we eat this pie? It will be tasty, just as tasty or tastier as the other pies we have come to know. But biting into this pie is not just biting into any pie. It is biting into the Dark Animal Heart of Man. But sometimes we need the Dark Animal Heart of Man, like Captain Kirk needed his evil Captain Kirk in that episode where he got split into two halves and one of them was good and one of them was a meat pie. There is a place for the savage meat pie as much as there is a place for any pie. It is all part of the great pie cycle of life.

But that still doesn't mean we should not beware of this pie. This is a pie that takes no prisoners. This is a savage pie.

So I open up my email today expectin to hear the usual excitin offers for free male enhancement and mysterious African currency and instead I found a story from CBS about American soldiers and military contractors torturing and humilating Iraqi prisoners. Prisoners have been beaten to death and stripped and threatened with electrocution. There are allegations of a rape. There are photos.

"Is this real?" I says to Giblets."It's the internet," says Giblets. "It's internet-real.""We're the good guys," I says. "It can't be real.""Television will tell us the truth," says Giblets, and he is correct because Television knows.

But thankfully it is all just a big heap of nothin because when we turned on the TV all that was on on every news channel what Michael Jackson getting indicted!

"Whew," says me. "I was very afraid American soldiers had actually tortured Iraqis!""Yeah," says Giblets. "That would have deeply shaken me and my faith in the purity of occupation forces.""That would have been the worst thing ever," I says."Almost as bad as the heavy allegations weighing on the King of Pop," Giblets says."Indeed," I says. "He may be unfit to wear the crown.""The crown of pop," Giblets says."How's the siege of Fallujah goin?" I says."Havent seen much lately," says Giblets. "I guess it's pretty much over then," I says.

Fox News's Linda Vester promises to get back to us with up-to-the-minute coverage of the Michael Jackson arraignment just after this break. She might even have an expert panel!

America is at war. A war not merely against one terrorist organization, but a war for its very way of life, to protect that most ephemeral thing known as Freedom. The Medium Lobster has been heartened to see that the fight to preserve the American way is being taken to its most direct front: cracking down on pornography and dirty words.

Both the Justice Department and the FCC have spent the last several weeks courageously rolling back the terror cells of smut and swear words that threaten to destroy the civilization the West so deeply cherishes. Indeed, just today the Medium Lobster has learned that the roiling cesspool of filth known as NPR will no longer be allowed to make unfettered use of the word "suck" over the radio, and John Ashcroft continues to wage a multi-milliondollar war against that most pernicious of Islamist radicals: the porn industry.

The narrow-minded and the short-sighted have seen these crucial steps as at best a useless distraction or at worst an infringement upon basic constitutional liberties. As always, the Medium Lobster has nothing but pity for these deluded souls. The war America is fighting is in fact part of a larger war - a war to protect Western civilization and the American way of life from those that would destroy it. And Indecency, and the dark sweaty corruption it promises, threatens indeed to destroy it. Americans must acknowledge that censoring shock-jocks and arresting fluffers is another crucial front in the ongoing battle to roll back the Islamist assault on freedom.

As part of the freest society in the world, you, too have a duty to perform in this fight. You must contribute to the cause. Which is why the Medium Lobster wants you to volunteer your services to Attorney General John Ashcroft and FCC Chairman Michael Powell by signing their agencies up to receive massive amounts of porn via email. To defeat one's enemy, one must first know one's enemy - even if it means enduring excrutiating hours of hot barely-legal Asian teen anal action.

The Medium Lobster does not often deign to acknowledge the success of linear beings, but the recent maneuverings of the Bush/Cheney campaign in exposing the deadly scandal now known as "Ribbon-Medalgate" demand his muted and salutatory applause. In one fell swoop they have crippled the now-moribund Kerry campaign by exposing the dark underbelly of John Kerry's past he's so desperately attempted to keep hidden from the world: his Vietnam service.

In a brilliant move, the Bush-Cheney team has simultaneously managed to:

Remind voters of Kerry's five medals, which are not generally associated with valor, military experience, and service to one's country, but of the vital question of whether or not John Kerry was hit by enough shrapnel to merit two or three of his Purple Hearts!

Remind voters of Kerry's opposition to Vietnam, a war supported to this day by the vast majority of Americans. The Bush team is bound to make miles of headway by associating Kerry with the movement to end American military involvement in Indochina while positioning themselves as pro-Vietnam War hawks by default - especially after launching their own "land war in Asia" with Iraq!

Bring up Vietnam once again in the middle of the Iraq conflict, both swimmingly successful military operations which can only benefit by further comparison and juxtaposition to one another!

Prompt further comparisons of Kerry and Bush's war record, from which Bush can only benefit, as he spent the war valiantly defending the office lounges of Alabama from the vicious assault of the Viet Cong while John Kerry was dastardly earning medal upon medal just so he could throw them away - or worse, not throw them away - in disservice to America's war effort.

Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how the Bush team could have done any better - without, of course, enlisting the aid of the Medium Lobster.

Giblets was happy to hear last week that when Iraq becomes a free and sovereign nation on June 30 it will not in fact become a free and sovereign nation. This is good because as we learned before it was being sovereign that got Iraq into all their trouble. If they had an "older wiser" country like the US to tell them what to do would they have gone invading and threatening countries and building weapons of mass destruction? Maybe, but then it would have been invading and threatening the right countries and building good weapons of mass destruction. Bow before Giblets's world hegemon, Iraq! Booooooow!

But Giblets is afraid we may not be going far enough here. The current plan is to create an Iraqi government without legislative or meaningful executive power. But it is still an Iraqi government with the all the illusion of sovereignty: Iraqi puppets, Iraqi figureheads. At this rate they might get puffed-up enough to start pretend-oppressing their people or declaring fake war on their neighbors. Sometimes a little freedom is too much freedom. Better to install a democracy-minded Americo-Gibletsian strongman to keep things from getting out of line.

Giblets will volunteer for the burdensome task and weighty responsibility. I am eminently qualified to rule a foreign land harshly and without mercy. But at the same time I am very "democracy-minded." Giblets thinks about democracy all the time. "Hmmm, democracy" I am thinking right now. I will be moving my stuff into Bremer's place on July 1st.

"Wow what a useful thing to know," I says. "Now I will not feel so intimidated next time I bring a bison into Pottery Barn.""Even better," says Giblets. "Now this means we can break everything at the Pottery Barn and they will be helpless before us!""Well," I says. "In theory.""Helpless!" says Giblets."Well," I says. "Wouldn't be very nice to the Pottery Barn.""Heeeeeeellllpless," says Giblets.""Well," I says. Sometimes there is nothin you can say to Giblets. It is like that time he was set on transformin the Middle East.

So Giblets goes down to the Pottery Barn and I go after him to try to get him to stop and to maybe get something at the frogurt stand which is a couple stores down and Giblets starts by picking up a glass bowl and says "oops" and dropping it. "Powerless before Giblets!" says Giblets. There is much broken bowl. Store people are upset. Then he goes over to a set of glassware and goes "whoops" and it is dropped again. "Behold the mighty hand of Giblets!" says Giblets. When store people come over he shows them article from Newsday saying they have no policy to deal with him. "Are you saying your company lied to Newsday?" says Giblets. "Are you saying you have needlessly besmirched the reputation of Colin Powell? Well then you are helpless before Giblets, helpless, bow before him! Whoops." More pottery breaks.

"C'moooon Giblets," I says. "Stooooop it.""Giblets is busy," says Giblets."You are hurting the Pottery Barn," I says. "It is an innocent barn made of pottery.""Dance for Giblets!" Giblets says to the Pottery Barn.

We stayed there all weekend, Giblets breakin the Pottery Barn and me eating frogurt. It was good frogurt. Giblets wanted to stay until the next supply truck came but I told him we had to go.

So I am sorry internet! Two weekends in a row we at Fafblog have let you down by deserting you in times of crisis by leaving Fafnir and Giblets in some weird place for days and days. "And the Medium Lobster is not reliable," I says. "Very true," says Giblets. "The Medium Lobster transcends reliability," I says.

Yknow this may surprise a whole host of people but I Fafnir am not the most organized person in the world. Sometimes I am prone to forgettin things, and then people are all "You were supposed to pick up milk at the grocery store Fafnir" and "You weren't supposed to wash the floor with jello Fafnir." It is an easy thing to do if you are a little bit absent minded.

This is notthefirsttime Ariel Sharon has kind of forgotten he's not supposed to kill Yasser Arafat and it seems like we should probably try to do something about it before we all get into a tricky misunderstanding like "Oh you mean you didnt want us to kill your president?" and "Gee we're pretty sorry about kiling your president" and also "What you mean you didn't want us to kill your new president? Oh no!"

Now I usually get myself more organized with a To Do List. It reminds me what I have to do and not do and keeps me organized. I think Ariel Sharon would be able to keep things much straighter if he just kept a goals calendar to keep himself on track. Ariel Sharon, here is an idea to get you started:

Monday

brush teeth

buy eggs

aerobicize!

do not kill Yasser Arafat.

Tuesday

go jogging!

dismantle settlements

for lunch: a light salad.

do not kill Yasser Arafat.

There you go, you will be ready for a neatly paced life and regular international relations in no time! If youd like I can send you some more organizing tips like how to keep on top of those stressful bills, and where to put your pens so that you don't lose them. Good luck!

The Medium Lobster saw it coming. The tempest-in-a-teapot that is the US military's policy of concealing photos of coffins has arrived, and the usual coalition of objectively-pro-terror naysayers is carping about "the value of truth" and "recognizing soldiers' sacrifice." And as usual, these sadly unilluminated leftists have it exactly backwards. If truth and transparency are to survive, we must conceal them as much as possible.

A free and unfettered press and a transparent government are elements of the American way of life, which as all truly enlightened beings understand is under attack by Terror itself. In order to preserve truth and freedom, America must win the War on Terror, and to win it America must Stay the Course. And if it is to Stay the Course, its national resolve and morale must not falter. And if its national resolve and morale is not to falter, it must never know that the War is going badly. Hence: America will only win if it ignores the fact that it is losing.

The Medium Lobster notes that not nearly enough is being done towards this effort. Refusing to release pictures of coffins is only a start; the United States is still acknowledging that Americans are dying at all. In fact, in addition to covering up photos of coffins, bodies, and burning Humvees, the American military should continue to report those fallen in the war as alive and serving admirably. While they're at it, they should up the enemy body count. Hence, the headline "6 Marines, 12 Iraqis killed" becomes "52 Islamofascist Terrorists Killed, 2 Marines Lightly Bruised."

Remember that the thing that will win this war is not "acknowledging mistakes" or "changing a doomed strategy." It's strong resolve, which will be magically channeled by Coalition mystics to create a strong, stable, and democratic Iraq, which in turn will save Freedom in the United States from falling to the forces of Islamist Rage. For those who value freedom and democracy, the restriction and manipulation of information as part of a wartime propaganda campaign is a small price to pay.

Well people are talking about bringing back the draft. As someone who is physically and legally immune from the draft Giblets must say it sounds like a great idea. First, we need more troops in Iraq if we are going to win, or at least prolong our nightmarish quagmire until we can lose "with honor." Second, not enough warm bodies are stupid enough to volunteer for the military what with the "Iraq slowly going to hell" thing. Third and most important: being forcibly shipped off to die in strange and hostile parts of the world will rebuild our long-lost national character.

Now some people whine about how the draft is wrong and how it is immoral to force citizens to kill and die in the military. These whining people as always do not take into account one crucial fact: FREEDOM ISN'T FREE. It has a price, and that price is arbitrary forced servitude to the state.

Remember that "freedom" is not just a word. It is a squishy, concept-lite word which invokes positive feelings. FREEDOM! Doesn't that feel good? Isn't that worth being locked up indefinitely as an enemy combatant without trial or shipped overseas to die for? It better. Because Giblets has no patience for enemies of freedom.

Giblets spends a lot of time on the internet or watching television or at movies or having to look at other people and I have to say 99% of the time the experience is horrible. You are all stupid people! Stupid people who deserve to be crushed under the mighty waffle* of Giblets!

But now and then I see something intelligent on the internet like this piece of reporting from Iraq from Andrew Sullivan. You know it is true because it comes from a military chaplain (he's from the military and the church - two great flavors that go great together). He explains for all the stupid people why it looks like things are getting worse in Iraq when they are actually getting not-worse:

"This country became a welfare state under Saddam. If you cared about your well-fare, you towed the line or died. The state did your thinking and your bidding. Want a job? Pledge allegiance to the Ba’ath party. Want an apartment, a car, etc? Show loyalty. ...

"So, we come along and lock up sugar daddy and give these people the toughest challenge in the world, FREEDOM. You want a job? Earn it! A house? Buy it or build it! Security? Build a police force, army and militia and give it to yourself. Risk your lives and earn freedom. ... they want a sugar daddy, the U.S.A., to do it all. We refuse."

Damn straight! Giblets for one is sick of these pampered Iraqi welfare moms and their "ohhh feed my family" and their "ohhh rebuild the infrastructure you blew up." Learn some gratitude, Iraqis! We come halfway around the world and take the time to give weapons to your dictator, start a war with him, crush your economy with sanctions, start another war, blow up your power plants and your cities and disband your police, and we did it all for you, so you could grow up to be as mature and developed a nation as we have become. And this is the thanks we get!

Freedom is not free, Iraqis! It has a price. And that price is being invaded crippled and occupied by a foreign military. If you cannot handle freedom we'll just have to hand you over to a "democracy-minded strongman." And this one might not be the sugar daddy that Saddam was.

*I would crush you with my mighty fist but I am eating a waffle right now. The waffle is also mighty.

By way of Boing Boing, the Medium Lobster sees that all the usual suspects are getting up in arms about the Treasury Department's dissemination of RNC campaign material on its website. In their shortsighted partisan anger, however, these bitter and petty-minded scolds risk weakening America in its fight against terror.

Over the course of the 9/11 hearings, John Ashcroft has alterted America to the threat posed by "the wall" established by nefarious bureaucratic Clintonites between intelligence and law enforcement... the very wall whose existence allowed the 9/11 terrorists to commit their mass atrocity. If there is any lesson mankind may learn from this, it is that the petty squabblings of government functionaries, obsessed with their procedures and their red tape, must be done away with if civilization is to be preserved from those who would destroy it.

So the Medium Lobster is heartened to see this beginning at the Treasury Department, with the with the tearing-down of the wall that separates the executive branch from partisan propaganda machines. No longer will the American voter have to actually go to Republican websites or functions to see campaign rhetoric - it will come to them, in their tax returns, on their drivers' licenses, in EPA reports. This is exactly the kind of streamlining and efficiency we need if our agencies are going to remain nimble enough to break up an al Qaeda sleeper cell or radically misrepresent John Kerry's voting record. The possibilities are limitless!

Of course some hidebound bureaucrats are bound to start crying foul, trying to protect their precious "procedures" and "departments" and their "objections to gross abuse of power." But if America doesn't sweep these kinds of objections aside, it stands to make the same mistakes it made on that fateful day.

Must the Medium Lobster respond to the allegations of vast pervasive incompetance and deception coming from every former top administration official or nationally-celebrated investigative reporter? Alas, it appears the weary answer is yes.

The latest behind-the-scenes-nightmare book has arrived to us courtesy of Bob Woodward, who has set the leftist media afire with claims that Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar was notified of the impending Iraq invasion before Colin Powell was, and that Bandar struck a deal to lower oil prices just before the presidential election. John Kerry has said "If it is true... that is outrageous and unacceptable to the American people." How absurd! If it is true, then all the more reason for the American people to salute and support the genius and leadership of the Bush Administration.

Consider: if Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar was notified of Bush's decision to go to war before Powell was, one can only conclude that the Saudi ambassador is more important to the Bush administration than the Secretary of State. And the reason for that is clear to any who have the vision to see through the tangled web of international intrigue: Prince Bandar is a Saudi mole in the employ of the American government, working at the highest levels to subvert and co-opt his own jihadist nation! Working closely with Bush and Cheney, he skillfully delivered Saudi Arabia into its quasi-partial-acceptance of the war to protect America from the menace of Saddam and is now working on a plan to reinigorate the US economy using his own country's oil supply! And by the looks of things the plan was to have this occur right in time for the election in order to protect America from the possibility of a terror-endorsed Kerry presidency!

Prince Bandar and George Bush. Is there anything these two mighty patriots can't accomplish for the good of freedom?

This week Slate is coveringThe Great American Pie Festival. "Wow Fafnir you must have been at this festival" you immediately assume "because of course you are the worlds first and foremost authority online or offline regarding pies." That's true I am and thank you very much! But I was not at the festival last weekend because (1) I was stuck in a parking lot and (2) I was not informed of the festival until it was too late.

Take a look at this pie. Is this the Great American Pie? Do ghostly buffalo still run in packs across its vast plains? Does everyone who sees it aspire to be part of it coming from every country around the world to taste its crust of opportunity, its fruit filling of entrepreneurial spirit? Is this pie the shining pie on the hill?

No. This is the pie of regret. This is the "you were not there Fafnir" pie. This is the "we're all eating this pie over at Slate and you're not Fafnir" pie. This is a hard pie. Is it not a tasty pie but you must eat it nonetheless. Wash it down with milk. Smother it with ice cream and cherries. The flavor of regret will still come through. There will be other pies. But you will never forget this one.

Everyone probably already saw John Kerrys interview on Sunday with Tim Russert on Meet the Press. Well here at Fafblog we ask the hard-hitting questions Russert not your pansy softball questions! Here we are real journalists. The following is Fafblog's interview with John Kerry which I swear is much better than ourpreviousinterviews with John Kerry.

FAFBLOG: These are delicious shrimp.JOHN KERRY: I know.FB: Now John Kerry you said back around Vietnamtime that soldiers were commiting atrocities and "There are all kinds of atrocities and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed." What is up with that? Will you be pro- or anti-atrocity as president?JK: Ho ho... whew, y'know what, Fafnir? Kids say the darndest things. When you're young and hip and full of the heady lust for life, really, what doesn't look like an atrocity?FB: Yknow that is very true. Now back in 2000 you talked about Cuba and you said "We have a frozen, stalemated counterproductive policy that is not in humanitarian interests nor in our larger credibility interest in the region... The only reason we don't reevaluate the policy is the politics of Florida."JK: Right.FB: So if you became president would you get rid of the embargo on Cuba then because the only thing keeping us is the power of crazy Cubans in Florida?JK: Heh heh heh. Nobody's talking about getting rid of the embargo, Fafnir! That's crazy talk. Crazy talk from the crazy days of four years ago. So much has changed since four years ago! Punk is back! Donald Trump has a TV show! Up is down!FB: Ha ha, punk!JK: No, Fafnir, would I would do is take a much more decisive step: I'd wait for a general consensus of a plan of action to emerge from the Cuban and Cuban-American communities and evaluate that plan.FB: Wow - that does sound like a plan! Now there is a war in Iraq right now John Kerry which you have criticized a lot. But you also voted for it in 2002. Why did you vote for it?JK: Ha ha! 2002, wow! Who can look back that far? Strange, strange days! Look, Fafnir, I'm a different person now than I am then. You're a different person now than you were then.FB: It's true! I contain fewer carbs.JK: Who's to say how I voted for what bill to give who the power to invade where? Not me, Fafnir. That John Kerry feels like another John Kerry.FB: Well I am glad we had you here to sort these vital issues out here John Kerry! Thank you for coming!JK: My pleasure.

Do you like advertising and product placement? Sure you do! Well you will love this because as it turns out marketing agencies are pushing print magazines "to open the text of their editorial pages to product placements." Yknow this is somethin I have always wanted! I am sick and tired of reading Fareed Zakaria go on and on about what we must do to create a free and stable Iraq while having no idea what kind of SUV he drives. Television and movies tell me what to buy all the time. Why cant my newspaper?

Just imagine this!

"Hi, I'm Paul Krugman. As I sat down at my computer to write up a scathing rebuke of the Bush administration's fiscal policy, I opened up a scathing, bubbling, fresh A&W Cream Soda. Ahhhh... now that's liberally refreshing!"

See just reading that makes me want to guzzle down a cool cold A&W and thats not even the real Paul Krugman. Which is why I want the real Paul Krugman to endorse products! Maybe he doesnt drink A&W. Maybe he drinks Mountain Dew! Although that would be so strange. It would totally make me rethink Paul Krugman if he were a Mountain Dew drinker. Or maybe it would make me rethink Mountain Dew! Perhaps it would acquire a more learned, fiscally sound gravitas, a more respectable and mature tone I usually associate with Schweppes. The possibilities are endless! Or at least endful, but in a cheap, briefly kinda-interesting way.

So Giblets and I have to apologize. "Giblets apologizes for nothing," says Giblets. Well Fafblog has to apologize. For a lack of Fafblog over the past few days. Because you were left without Fafblog many of you did not know what to think of the changing world around you! "Oh no there is stuff going on - but I do not know what to think because I do not know what the bloggers of Fafblog think!" you thought. And this was sad. Very very sad.

But Giblets and I have a very good excuse. "Giblets excuses nothing," says Giblets. We spent the weekend in a parking lot doing important parking lot activities such as looking for ways out of the parking lot and hitting each other for gettin stuck in the parking lot and askin people "hey do you know where the way out of this parkin lot?"

How we got stuck in the parkin lot is not important to our story especially seeing as I cannot remember it. What is important is the Learning And Growth Experiences we had. I learned about finding myself and the spirit of America. Giblets learned that if you eat a bag of circus peanuts in under five minutes you may require emergency medical attention.

There were other things we learned too like how not to get out of a parking lot. For instance our first plan was to call a taxi and have them take us out of the parking lot but we first ran into an Orange Julius and I wanted an Orange Julius and then Giblets was all "No we should get a Raspberry Julius, it is by far the superior Julius" and we ended up buying two of every kind of Julius on the Orange Julius menu and when the taxi arrived we were sick and poor and the taxi took us nowhere. The lesson here is: always travel with enough money for both a taxi and double the menu of an Orange Julius.

We also learned that when you have a cell phone you should use it wisely. Our next plan after the taxi was to call Chris and get a ride. This failed because (a) we had Chris's cell phone and Chris has no other type of phone and (b) we couldnt call anyone else because Giblets used up the cell phone calling his new ex-girlfriend Noodles. Giblets is still doing this now in fact. Giblets is highly persistent, you can say that for Giblets.

"Come back to Giblets baby," says Giblets. "Come back to Giblets NOOOOOOW!""That is the wrong approach Giblets," says me while Giblets redials."What do you know you know nothing!" says Giblets. "Love Giblets! Giblets commands you to love Giblets!""You are being perhaps too aggressive," says me. "Chicks do not like that.""Hmmmph! She is insolent!" says Giblets. "Also, she fears commitment."

Well we could go on and on. "And we usually do," says Giblets. But we wont because we love you. Fafblog hearts the world.

It is heartening to see another victory for Western Civilization with the assassination and subsequent raising to martyr status of Hamas chief Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi by Israel on Saturday. Beings who lack the scope and insight of the Medium Lobster will offer pithy responses such as "violence begets violence" or "this will only provoke more terrorism." What these unenlightened mobs fail to see is that this is precisely the point. Only through the hideous and wanton exacerbation of terror can Western civilization truly defeat it.

Consider the facts. There is no way any reasonable policy professional - much less the prime minister of Israel - could expect the targeted assassination of a single terrorist figurehead less than a month before the targeted assassination of another lionized terrorist figurehead could actually reduce the amount of terror in Israel/Palestine. Any leader with an intellect greater than that of a grapefruit would realize that these actions will do nothing more than galvanize the most radical segments of the Palestinian populace into orchestrating bloodier and bloodier assaults on Israeli society. But this is exactly what Ariel Sharon is counting on: by further radicalizing Palestine, Sharon will provoke so many suicide bombings that Hamas's casualty rate will eventually pass its recruitment rate, and the terrorist group will be vanquished. A victory for peace!

That Sharon is willing to do this at such a cost to his own people - markedly increased terrorism and fatalities - demonstrates his deep commitment to the peace process. He has even gone so far as to convince President Bush to endorse the permanent retention of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a move that will not only speed up this dynamic "peace expectorant" in Israel, but in Iraq, where a deeper association between Israeli and American policy will be sure to provoke even more attacks on US troops, luring insurgents right out into the open where they can be more easily defeated.

It is the Medium Lobster's understanding that Sharon will continue this path towards peace in earnest - bulldozing random villages, cracking down on curfew violations, and of course completing the security barrier that cuts across the West Bank. Indeed, it is hoped that the latest peace initiative to culminate with two Apache helicopters airlifting the Prime Minister's naked, bloated, wriggling form over the Temple Mount so he may personally defecate on the Dome of the Rock.

Truly, these are wondrous times we live in, when terror stands ready to be vanquished and peace lies within our grasp - almost as heartening as seeing Vladimir Putin nourish Russia's fledgling democracy through the cultivation of an iron-fisted autocracy. But that is a story for another time.

That was quick! Just a couple jello shots and Moqtada was up and ready to go. Yknow he is not such a bad guy once you get to know him for an evil right wing religious fanatic. It just goes to show you should always negotiate with Islamic fundamentalists.

"Light blogging?" you say. "From Fafblog? But I depend on it for all my news and opinions!" Yes thats true you do. But today I am very busy negotiating talks between the US, Iran and radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. He started off demandin a full theocratic Islamic state in Iraq and our counter-offer was a Rice Krispie Treat and a glow-in-the-dark yo-yo that quotes the Qur'an. He countered with the withdrawal of US troops from the holy city of Najaf and we countered with two Rice Krispie Treats and a packet of free movie passes good at any participating Leows. Now we are making some real progress!

Anyway we could be busy for a while here so don't wait up. I give you permission to yknow read other blogs and things on the internet. It is okay I will forgive you!

P.S. Europe I know you are hearing things from this bin Laden person about a truce but dont you take it, or at least dont let him take it cheap. Make him pay through the nose. He sees chicks like you and he thinks you are vulnerable and can rip you off. When you show up to meet him bring a big strong authoritarian dictatorship with you like Russia or China to show you mean business like maybe you will rough him up and rollback his organization a little. Otherwise he will totally rip you off and add all kinds surplus factory charges and suicide bombs.

Giblets has noticed people getting all up in arms about the possibility of John Negroponte becoming US ambassador to Iraq just because he "lied to the public" and "covered up Central American death squads." Well, Giblets hears a lot of whining and criticism coming from the anti-death squads crowd, but where are their solutions? All I hear from them is "death squads are bad, death squads will not help our economy recover, death squads are not the solution to terror." Well what is? All Giblets hears is a lot of backwards-looking negativity from reactionary anti-death squads people, and not a lot of positive alternatives.

In the meantime who is to say that death squads aren't the "shot in the arm" that the Iraqi recovery needs right now? Giblets only hears one side offering a solution, people.

Well I have to say I am mighty embarrassed-looking right now. After all my doubts and things about Iraq and the war against terror and even the President himself I realized just how plain silly all that was at last night's Presidential press conference (or "presser" as we call it in the "industry"). Ladies and readers I am pleased to present you with key points from last nights conference and the knowledge that our resolve is strong!

On Iraq:

All this violence stuff in Iraq is no big deal. The media makes such a big deal of everything! What is wrong with you media!

We will overcome this violence because our resolve is strong.

The President has a plan! It is a good plan and we will get it done with our resolve which is strong.

Also with our love of freedom. Do you love freedom? Discussion question: what's the best thing you love about freedom?

On the 9/11 Commission:

There was nothing we could have done to prevent 9/11 but the President did everything in his power to prevent it from happening despite the fact that yknow there was nothing he could have done to prevent it.

The only one responsible for 9/11 is the terrorists who will be found and brought to justice. Justice's resolve is strong.

The President is appearing together with Dick Cheney just because they were both asked to talk to the 9/11 Commission so why not show up together? The President wishes everybody could have given testimony to the Commission together it'd be like a big party! He'd bring the soda and chips! The President's chips are strong.

On our resolve:

It is strong.

Also it is resolute and firm. It is so firm! You have no idea how firm our resolve is. Whew! It's pretty firm I'll tell you that.

In addition to resolve we have resoluteness and strength. These are also very strong and resolute.

Also, freedom is beautiful. Look at those mountains! Smell that ocean air!

On the hideous bug invaders:

Reports regarding the hideous bug invaders have been greatly exaggerated and their laying of eggs in soldiers' brains is in no way to be perceived as a setback in the war against terror. Our resolve is so strong!

They have laid their eggs in far fewer soldiers' brains than the media is reporting. Man media there is something wrong with you!

Why from the looks of things on CNN you'd think theyd insectofied three whole platoons of soldiers by now which is crazy talk! Ha ha! Crazy talk, our resolve is strong!

"Yes I am Fafnir! Now I can read Fafblog on my newsreadin machine which can accompany me wherever I wish. In the bathroom, in the sandwich parlor, in the bathroom of the sandwich parlor. Pretty much everywhere!"

Yes your life has improved by extraordinary leaps and other leaps. You can find our Fafbloggy RSS xml syndicationalist address thing at[http://fafblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml], or just below the right column - that is the column that DOESN'T have the cool picture on it. It says "RSS" on it. See I have thought of everything.

If there is a better way to do any of this please let me know. Chris has been lazy and career-focused and horribly vomiting and as such has not been very helpful here. Hmmmf.

There has been no end of late to the nakedlypartisancriticism of the Bush Administration's plan to hand over civilian control of Iraq on June 30, and as usual, these critics merely do the work of the terrorists. George Bush has a plan, and that plan is to turn political control of Iraq over to an unspecified group or groups on June 30th. And as long as America stays the course and hands over control of the occupation according to this arbitrary deadline, the battle of civilization over chaotic evil will end in victory.

Recall that this is not merely a war against "terrorists." It is not some mere struggle to "liberate" an "oppressed people." Such limited concepts do not interest ones as lofty as the Medium Lobster. No, Iraq is part of a grander war: a battle between Civilization and the forces of Barbarian Evil. In this framework, it becomes clear to all enlightened beings that victory will arrive on June 30 regardless of who receives control of Iraq.

What does a deadline indicate? A deadline indicates the individual's recognition of his subservience to a schedule, to a societal and temporal structure larger than himself. It is the very foundation of Civilization. Turning over one regime to another on schedule indicates that regime is now functioning within the proper norms of civilized society, indeed, that its origins stem from it. In this context, it doesn't matter whether the United States turns civilian authority over to the United Nations or the Interim Governing Council or the most extreme of Khomeini-ite theocrats.

Indeed, it would actually work to America's advantage to turn over authority to terrorists come June 30, for then those same criminal savages would be necessarily converted to the cause of Western society, and be bound by the same crystalline structures of order and reason that bind America to stay the course. As the United States carries the great torch of Western enlightenment, let it pass to Iraq on time and on schedule - or America is no better than the savages who would put out that bright light altogether.

Well Giblets sees that Fafnir would have us run away from terrorists. I'm sure it would feel nice and cozy on the Moon, Fafnir, with your Moon-drinks and your Moon-women and your relaxing Moon-music. But you would be relaxing in defeat without honor - and leaving an unstable Mideast behind to be overrun by evil. There is only one solution which can save Iraq from deterioration now, and it involves massive, massive bombs.

Remember how it was a year ago? Giblets does. Fantastic explosions all over Baghdad, thousands dead, and Iraqis were happy to see American soldiers. Why? Not because we had "freed them" from a "brutal dictator." But because they had experienced loving discipline. The discipline that comes with mass destructuon.

Now Giblets hears a lot of namby-pamby types going on about "we can't afford to alienate the Iraqis Giblets" or "violence begets violence Giblets." That is crap. An occupation is like a child. Or a woman. Or a bottle of fine wine, perhaps. The point is, you must approach it with the carrot and the stick. The stick is thousands of tons of explosives dropped on mosques and radical religious leaders. The carrot is thousands of tons of explosives NOT dropped on mosques and radical religious leaders.

When you discipline a child he grows up stronger and with better character. When you discipline a country you get a pliant and reasonable country with liberal democratic values. Or you get massive escalating war, in which case we still win because we have much bigger guns. Either way things come out rosy.

So things are goin bad in Iraq. Now I was against the war from the beginning and as someone who got it right and realized that the war was going to be bad and ugly and bad, I have come to the conclusion that we have no choice but to withdraw all our stuff from Iraq.

"But Fafnir" you say, "doesn't that mean the Terrorists Win." No because I am terribly clever. When we withdraw from Iraq we won't just take our guns and tanks and soldiers, we will also take our Iraqis with us! That way the terrorists cannot take over Iraq because there will be no Iraqis to take over. If Iraq is so screwed up that we cant fix it, why isnt it so screwed up that Iraqis shouldnt have to live in it? I say pull Iraq out of Iraq. It is time for it to come home.

"But where are we going to put twenty two million Iraqis Faf" you say. "That's like a lot of Iraqis." Well that's the best part! We move them to the Moon!

Who wouldn't want to live on the Moon? I mean come on! It's the moon! It's so much better than Iraq! There's plenty of room, and being on the moon is like bein in the future. If you own a goat it becomes a moon-goat. When you put out a fatwa you are putting out a moon-fatwa. This alone would make Ayatollah Sistani's job ten times as fun! I mean I'd move to the Moon if it wasn't gonna be full of Iraqis!

This will make our country stronger strategically while accomplishing the also strong goal of putting awesome stuff on the Moon. No one is saying this will be cheap. But nobody likes war. And everybody loves the Moon!

Eventually we could withdraw all our problem countries to the Moon. Come on Iran! How much cooler would it be to be Iran... on the Moon? Israel we might have to move to Mars but that's okay, Mars is even cooler, it has water and that face thing and robot mummies! Some will say I am being prejudiced towards Israel here but that is not true, there are enough planetoids to go around to move all our trouble spots.

We are introducin a brand new feature here at Fafblog. Hooray you will love it!

"Wow Fafnir what is this brand new feature?" says you or perhaps your forcibly virus-installed pornographic screen saver. Well I'll tell you. It is called Point: Counterpoint: Counter-Counterpoint. Each week me, Giblets and the Medium Lobster will debate a Matter of Weighty Import in a three-column format. There's nothing you can't learn from a three-column format!

"That is amazing Fafnir I am so excited already!" says your pornographic screensaver as it deposits tracking cookies onto your system. It sure is, screen saver. This week we will discuss Progress In Iraq! Have we had any, and if so what should we do with it?

"That is quite amazing Fafnir, I have always wanted to know all of Fafblog's varying opinions on one subject at once!" says your pornographic screensaver as it reports your email address to numerous free v146ra suppliers. Well now you will know! And knowing is half the battle. The other half of the battle is very large guns. But are we winning either halves of these battles in Iraq? You don't know yet because you haven't read Point: Counterpoint: Counter-Counterpoint!

I will go first today because I'm tallest. Giblets will go second because he is shortest. The Medium Lobster will go last because while to our limited perception he appears to be a lobster which is neither large nor small he in reality transcends the concept of size.

Giblets has listened to a lot of people whine and complain about the so-called American institutions that're under so-called attack, like "marriage" and "civil liberties" and "the right to vote." Giblets would like to believe he has treated this piffle with the appropriate level of screeching disdain. But lately a true bastion of Western civilization has come under fire and Giblets will be damned if he will stand there and let Coca-Cola be abused like this.

Belle Waring of the blog John & Belle Have a Blog has used a lame argument about "oooh, oooh, agribusiness subsidies are huge corrupt and bad" to take a swipe at her real target: the enduring American institution that is Coke. She argues that Big Agribusiness's replacement of sugar with high fructose corn syrup has made Coke "taste bad."

Coke bad? Please, Belle Waring. Burn Giblets's flag, destroy his Statue of Liberty, rip his still-beating heart from his chest and hold it triumphantly in front of him before squeezing it to mush - but do not disparage that sweet elixir, that beverage bastion of the Western world. That is too much.

When Coke is filled with that corn syrup, it is American corn syrup, strong, saccharine sweetener fresh from the nation's heartland, land of the Indians and the buffalo and the pioneers and the factory farms. What would you have us put in it - cane sugar, imported from some strange foreign country, like they put in the Cokes of the French? Maybe if this were RC, or Tab, or even Mr Pib, we could allow it. They are just sodas in the end. They are not representing the pioneer spirit. But when you lift a cool, refreshing Coke to your lips you are not just drinking a cold, delicious, bubbling beverage. You're drinking America. The smooth, rich flavor of a newly-opened Coke is the flavor of America. The worldwide market dominance of Coke is the manifest destiny of America. Coke does not taste sweeter because of the sugar in its composition. It tastes sweeter because of the pride we have in our nation. After 9/11 Coke was so sweet and so refreshing it moved Giblets to tears. He drank twelve cases and required an emergency stomach-pump.

No matter what happens to America, there will always be Coke. When the terrorists strike again, we will still have Coke. When a neo-fascist government takes over the United States, suspends the constitution, and imposes permanent matrial law, we will still have Coke. When the genetically-engineered underclass is forced into slave labor camps to build neutron bombs to fling against enemy empires, they will sit back after their toils and enjoy Coke. When aliens sift through the ashen ruins of human civilization centuries hence for some clue to who we once were, they will find a shimmering red can beneath the sands, pop it, guzzle, and understand. This was our gift to one another, our gift to the world. Christian, Muslim, gay, striaght, liberal, conservative, all of us everywhere can join in the dream. All of us can Enjoy Coke.

Today we briefly examine the birthday pie.This is the pie of benevolent universal celebratory continuation. It says "Wow Fafnir, you are still here, you are older, and you are you! Congratulations!" The Birthday Pie does not discriminate. Everyone gets a Birthday Pie! Gandhi got a birthday pie. Stalin got a birthday pie. Hobos and kings and saints all get birthday pies. The pie embraces all things and all people without judgment. It does not care that stole the candles to put on its frosting or that you are ugly or dumb, or that you are rich and important and kindly. It is there because you are, and it is extending you its bountiful pielike grace for a day to commemorate you, whoever or whatever you are, and it will see you again in a year if you make it. Take care of yourself.

Giblets has always had a complex relationship with God. On the one hand Giblets sympathizes with God; I too know the distant loneliness of being a mighty sovereign relatively unknown to billions of my subjects. On the other hand Giblets is angry with God's insolence: Create substance ex nihilo for Giblets, God! Create substance ex nihilo for Giblets NOOOOOOOOOW!

So Giblets does not know how to react to, say, Easter. Redemption and forgiveness do not do much for me because why would Giblets need redemption and forgiveness, after all, he is Giblets! That said, there is one thing about God Giblets can really get into, and that is this notion of annihilating the insolent in fiery destruction at the end of the world.

I found out about God's personal plan for me and the annihilation of mankind through the Left Behind series. But because Giblets does not bother himself with "conventional" reading, Giblets read Left Behind: The Graphic Novel and the children's series Left Behind: The Kids. Just because you are a confused pre-adolescent just coming to grips with new feelings and new situations doesn't mean you're not old enough to be forcibly drawn into a battle of good-versus-evil between the angelic forces of righteous destruction and the Satanic new world order of the Antichrist's U.N.-based one-world kingdom.

But the problem is, when is this Armageddon thing gonna go down? Giblets has been waiting for it for like forever, for days even. There are countless evil people still alive and undamned, from terrorists to fools who do not serve Giblets to ugly people. How long, O Lord, how long shall the wicked triumph?

"May the culture of life and love render vain the logic of death," he said.

He specifically urged world leaders and global institutions to end conflict in Iraq, the Holy Land and Africa.

Sounds pretty soft to me for a guy who is supposed to be looking forward to the the falling of the star Wormwood, the destruction of every blade of green grass, and the unleashing of the rider on the pale horse whose name is Death. Sounds to Giblets like the Pope's gettin' a little soft on the likes of Satan. Maybe the Pope better start asking himself whose side he's on anyway.

For that matter whose side is God on, anyway? Why is his Son the "Prince of Peace"? He got some kind of conflict of interest here? I look back on two thousand years, I see a lot of genocide, a lot of famine and pestilence, not enough world-ending. Well, God, if you're not up to the task, maybe you should just step aside and let some other folks handle the job. I think there'd be plentyofpeople who'd be more than willing.

Thanks for dyin for my sins, Jesus. And since it is still Passover I would also like to thank the Angel of Death for passin over me and God for leading me out of Egypt (I was lost there last summer). Eggs and birthday pies and unleavened pancakes for everyone!

Everyone is too busy paintin eggs and eatin sheep and playin with kids and talkin Jesus and paintin sheep and eatin kids and playin Jesus to celebrate little ol Faf's birthday. All I got today was a couple lousy presents from Giblets and Chris and a phone call from the Pope which I could not understand because it was Latin and Polish. You coulda showed up for the cake Pope.

Anyway. It is Fafday. The world is born anew in cake! Happy birthday to you and to everyone. Cept Jesus - upstagin my birthday with the promise of everlasting life. Lousy Jesus.